Concealment
by Breadwing
Summary: Erin, a paranoid transfer student, has just moved to Tranquillity and seems to be hiding something. Something huge. Meanwhile, there are bigger problems for the world that started when two warring factions crash landed on Earth. Why are the aliens here and how do they tie in with Erin? 07 movie, may go AU


**A/N Hallo everyone! It has been a while, half a year I think? Anyways, I bring you a new story that has been plaguing me forever while I try and rewrite some of my old stuff ****J Enjoy! (And please note, some things Erin says may come across as odd, but I do know what I'm doing with this. Plot bunnies!)**

**_..._**

Erin stepped out of her car, cautiously looking around. She was getting more and more paranoid as the time she was in Tranquillity wore on, hoping against hope they wouldn't find her. After finally deciding that none of them were close by and scanning the area, she decided it safe enough to venture a little further as she made her way up the steps to her high school. For certain... reasons, she had disguised herself as an adolescent, looking about seventeen. She pushed a lock of ginger hair behind her ears as it slid across her face, even though she knew it would just slip back in a few minutes and shouldered her back pack, bracing herself for another day of school. Slipping her schedule out of her pocket, she peered at it before sagging in relief at her first lesson; maths. The sciences and numbers made sense to her; they were the same everywhere in the world – in the Universe.

Her squeaking sneakers were drowned out as she made her way to the class room, through the crowded halls. It was hard getting used to such a busy place and she flinched every time some kid screeched near her or nearly bashed into her. She'd only been going to this high school maybe two weeks? She didn't stay in one place for too long, circumstances forced her to move around a lot and her general mistrustfulness of _everywhere_ didn't help. Steeling herself, she quickly stumbled through the mob of teenagers and stepped into the class room quickly – anything to be away from the noise and clutter of the corridors. As it turned out, she was a few minutes early and had a few moments of peace before the warning bell rang and students began filtering in. When everyone was seated and slouched at their seats, the teacher (Mr Saeed) began talking "Today we'll be revising vectors..."

There was a collective groan from the class as Mr Saeed started up the slideshow presentation. He shushed them and began running through the properties of vectors, ignoring the fact that already a few of the class had gone into a daydream or were doodling. Erin almost felt sorry for him, thinking how annoying it must be to cope with people who don't care about what you were trying to tell them. Sighing, she opened her notebook and began taking notes despite having written it down before; after all, it was better to be safe than sorry.

The first half of the day passed in a blur of information and noise. Erin followed the usual regime of listening, taking notes and avoiding certain people. One of these 'certain people' happened to be walking up to her, ready to try out some of his smooth moves – as soon as the lunch bell rang as well. He was harmless enough and Erin was sure he was a nice person, but she couldn't help but find him a little annoying.

"Hello, Miles." She greeted in resignation by the cafeteria doors, didn't he ever learn? It wasn't exactly fun to deflect his comments either.

"Erin," He looked her up and down "How _you _doin'?"

"I'm fine, thanks. Hasn't that been done before?" she replied pointedly, wanting to get out of this situation as soon as possible.

He laughed nervously "Well obviously they stole it from me. Anyways, I was wondering-"

Thankfully, salvation cam in the form of a twitchy boy grabbing Miles, muttering "You can chat her up later, right now I need to know if you're going to the Lake." He dragged Miles away into the dinner hall, as the 'legend' himself tried to protest. Erin turned in the opposite direction towards the front entrance and made her way to her car. She slid into the seat; thankful that she lived close enough to be allowed back home for lunch. Putting the key in the ignition, she set off away from the school and towards the nearest gas station, wincing at the high prices. Still, she had to fill her tanks as much as she could and this was the closest place to do it. Sighing in happiness, she felt a wave of satisfaction rolling over her body, the tanks already working on converting the diesel. Grimacing at the high prices again, she made her way into the building to pay.

Erin rolled out of the petrol station around ten minutes later (the line just _had_ to be abnormally long), her wallet a lot lighter and in a worse mood than before _'Bloody people thinking they can skip ahead...'_ she accelerated away wanting to escape that annoyance and get back to school quickly. She still had at least 20 minutes left, but it was nice to go into the library and find a book she hadn't read or just to bask in the quiet atmosphere. Most of the students never really went into the library unless they had exams to study for, and even then they rarely stayed.

After finally getting through the worsening lunch time traffic, she found a parking space at the far end of the car park and walked back into school, taking her time before she had to get swept up in the crowds of students. Luckily it was usually quieter at lunch in the halls as most students were either in the refectory or in the grounds so Erin had relative peace as she made her way through the corridors to the library.

She bumped into one of her friends, Katie, on the way up and she stopped in the corridor to talk "Hi Katie" she said smiling slightly

"_Oh_, hey Erin! Almost didn't see you, how are you?" Katie had always been kind to her, since the day Erin first 'transferred' from Dublin to here. Everyone had their little cliques and groups of friends already so it was hard for Erin to try and make friends, but Katie had taken the time to get to know her and help her out when she got lost. She managed to somehow gain Erin's trust quickly, quicker than most people and they had become fast friends.

Erin laughed a little "I'm fine, Kate, just going to the library. You? How's it going trying to get Jack to notice you?" she winked and nudged Katie in the side. Jack, Erin had speedily found out from all the gushing over him, was Katie's long time crush and he was _finally_ starting to talk to her.

Katie slapped a hand over Erin's mouth and looked around frantically. She could feel a slight blush coming up and Erin's muffled laughter at her dramatics wasn't helping things. "_Shoosh!_ I don't want people to know," she eventually replied after deeming the area safe and secure and removing her hand from Erin's face "And to answer your question, it's going great! He asked me to a party at the Lake."

Erin grinned and said in a hushed voice "Go in for the kill. It is time, my child."

Kate snorted and slapped Erin's upper arm lightly "'It is time' my arse. Anyway, you'll come too, right?" taking in Erin's face as it dropped into an expression of mild horror, she continued to try and convince her and quickly rushed on "I'll need the moral support, and anyway it'll be good for your self confidence!"

"But I'm not popular, people will wonder why I'm there! Especially as I'm the new kid."

"So? You'll have me and my group of friends there to help, it'll be fun! You could end up hooking up with someone, ey?" she nudged Erin this time, with a devious smirk on her face. That made the situation ten times worse in Erin's mind. Katie's friends had never really liked the fact that the two were friends when she'd been introduced; they felt that Erin was taking Katie away from them she supposed. And then there were boys. They generally didn't notice her after a few days of her pretty much running away or deflecting the comments when they tried to hit on her; she had little to no chance of hooking up with _anyone _other than Miles. _'In any case, Miles just likes me because he's into red heads or something.'_ It wasn't like they'd had any conversation outside of him trying out his completely original, totally patented pick up lines.

"I don't know..." she wasn't sure if it was worth the effort and embarrassment that would probably follow, she was pretty much socially awkward with most people, Katie being the exception. _'Then again it could be an opportunity to make other friends'_ Erin thought, inadvertently making the decision harder.

"Please?" Oh good Lord, Katie was getting her pout on and making her friend feel bad about being indecisive.

She sighed in exasperation "_Fine._" Katie squeaked and hugged her friend quickly thanking her. They carried on their conversation for a little bit before Katie got a text from her friends wondering where she had got to and she had to take her leave.

She called back to Erin "I'll meet you at the lake at sixish, okay? Look out for my car, I'll wait by it!"

"Okay. See you then!" Erin called back and she smiled, her friend's bubbliness was infectious.

**_..._**

It had been a long day.

The teachers had gone over subjects and work Erin had learned many times over so her mind kept wandering which wouldn't have been too bad, if it weren't for the fact that they always chose that time to ask her a question. The teachers would get annoyed at her, Erin would get embarrassed and the class would snigger at her; rinse and repeat. She sighed for what seemed like the millionth time that day and pulled her hair up into a ponytail to help her concentrate, it usually worked. Unlike the morning lessons, these seemed to drag on forever, but somehow Erin had made it through to the final class of the day. Genealogy wasn't _so _bad; they just had to give a presentation on their families. Of course, Erin had to adapt her family history just a little (Maybe a lot) as she talked about her grandfather being a soldier in the Great War and held up helmets and other artefacts she'd bought.

It wasn't really as interesting as some of the others' family history; in fact the boy who went after her had an Arctic explorer for an ancestor which Erin thought was pretty great. Obviously her classmates were bored out of their skulls and one of the more popular boys even started throwing spit balls at him, probably to impress the pretty girl sat next to him.

"Stop doing that." Erin muttered to him. He just shot her a dirty look and turned to the girl again, who Erin recognised as one of Katie's friends, Mikaela. Mikaela had usually been civil enough when she first started hanging out with Katie, even friendly at times which was welcome. She sighed and turned to the front to watch the boy (_'The one from earlier who dragged Miles away'_ she realised) dump a load of old artefacts from his bag. He held up some equipment which was used by "19th century seamen." Her class, being the immature people they were, sniggered at this putting the boy off and the teacher didn't even bother doing anything about it. Instead he just help up a sign and looked as exasperated as Erin felt.

That was when his whole presentation started going downhill for his grades.

He held up some more of the antiques adding in "It's all for sale by the way."

_'Well that's just a bit disrespectful,' _she thought to herself, narrowing her eyes a little _'Whatever happened to family values?'_, especially as they were at ridiculous price**s**, 80 dollars for something no one would probably use was _just a little_ steep**. **

Their teacher obviously wasn't impressed either "Are you going to sell me his liver as well?" This stopped the boy (or 'Mr Witwicky' as he had been called) and he explained it was for his car fund. He was selling off heirlooms for a car. And to add insult to injury he tried to sell them _again_ just after he'd been told not to. Erin saw Witwicky's grades just flying out the window as he dug himself deeper and deeper into his hole of C minuses.

However, what Witwicky said when he finally got his project back on track caught Erin's interest "...he ended up going blind and crazy and drawing these strange symbols," he pointed to a yellowing newspaper with strange oriental looking pictograms on the cover, Erin's eyes widened and she flinched a little "and babbling on about some giant ice man-" The bell cut the boy off just as Erin was starting to pay closer attention. The teacher tried to wrap up the lesson but everyone was pretty much out the door as soon as they could make it. Erin was almost the last out, still unnerved from Witwicky's presentation, but she looked back to him arguing about his grades with the teacher.

It was then Erin made her mind up to talk to the boy about his ancestor. She needed to know what he meant by 'giant ice man', maybe she could get a copy of the symbols that looked so familiar.

**_..._**

After pushing through hordes of people, all shoving through the double doors out into freedom, Erin flopped against the side of her car pushing her hair back off her face. _'I can relax and just lie down forever now. Well until Monday at least.' _She breathed a happy sigh and even let out a small laugh as some of the tension left her body (even her building paranoia from the morning and the boy's presentation seemed to be a thing of the past), imagining how good it would feel to get some re-

Erin's phone buzzed and vibrated in her pocket, interrupting her thoughts. She slid into the driver's seat and turned on the CD player before curiosity finally got the better of her. She flipped the phone open and unlocked it to find that Katie had texted her. Something niggled in the back of her mind and she spaced out, looking at the screen vacantly; she'd forgotten something, but what had she forgotten? Absently fiddling with the phone charm, Erin tried to remember what she couldn't recall. Shrugging, she quickly opened the message and saw that it read **'Remember, the lake at 6 okay? Thank you besty buddy! Xx ****J' **

Erin's heart dropped.

_That_ was what she'd forgotten.

**_..._**

**Tell me your every thought. And feedback! Concrit is most appreciated :D So the Olympics has started and my country is hosting, so I'm going down south for a bit; this may not be updated for two weeks tops, but I'll try and get a chapter out before I go. And excuse me while I gush, but wow, our opening ceremony was pretty cool. (I'm not bragging by the way, I just really enjoyed it) The only moose in the ointment was Paul McCartney. **

**'Til next time!**


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